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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28393752">All this time.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yui_Miyamoto/pseuds/Yui_Miyamoto'>Yui_Miyamoto</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on LiveJournal, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2004-09-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2004-09-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:16:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,584</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28393752</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yui_Miyamoto/pseuds/Yui_Miyamoto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Colonel is waiting for Edward in a train station.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Edward Elric/Roy Mustang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All this time.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span><b>Disclaimer: Full Metal Alchemist isn</b><b>’</b><b>t mine.<br/><br/></b>“Stop.  Stop.  STOP~!”<br/><br/>I don’t know who hears me, but I put my hands on my ears and I fall to my knees.  Even though it is of no use, I begin to crush my white gloves against my ears, hoping that the sounds will go away.  There aren’t just ordinary sounds though.  They’re of people shouting and screaming in panic. I can’t make out what they’re saying, but it makes me shudder to the bone, a quiver that even shakes my soul.<br/><br/>I am in the middle of the chaos even though everything is veiled in blackness.  Even though my eyes are open, I can’t tell where I am going.  There is nothing but darkness and it becomes darker the more I blink my eyes to make sure there is nothing wrong with me.<br/><br/>It feels like an empty place, a vacuous space that‘s stealing more than my life and probably specific parts from the depths of my soul.  Though I do not return to the path I came from, I take steps to my left and to my right.  I walk diagonally too, but there’s no stopping point and my elbows aren’t caught by anything.  <br/>There are no walls.<br/><br/>However, in my head, there are a series of pictures flipping in one general direction.  There are people’s faces, their voices, and the feelings they invoked within me.  I don’t know what I want to hear because sometimes, I want to purposely be deaf.  I don’t know what to respond with when my lips change their position in a matter of seconds.<br/><br/>I see my triumphs.  Al and I are giving our mother a bouquet of flowers.  Even though I hold a grudge against my father and this is what reminds our mother the most about him, I cannot erase the prize of a smile on her confused face.  She is always smiling, but her eyes look so lost at times, appearing as if she’s fighting herself for him and for us. <br/><br/>I gaze at my failures.  There is Colonel Mustang holding onto me.  I can feel his heart pounding deep inside of him because that’s how tightly his uniform pinches onto mine and his gloves push into my skin.<br/>Even though I cannot look into his sharp eyes, I can tell he’s crying.  An ache that I do not know how to heal. <br/>“I’m only a kid,” I yell at him in the most inaudible of whispers.  I’m so choked up inside that I can’t even say a word in edgewise.<br/>“You are an adult when it’s convenient for you,” he retorts back, scolding me with a cold tone. <br/>The comment stabs me, but because he clearly, by now, views me as an equal.  I am unlike any other person to him.<br/><br/>I watch my humanity envelop me like a strong windstorm.  It takes me by surprise but I’m faced with a new confidence that brilliantly shows on every corner of my being.  As I stand before the main building in Central City, I proudly hold my papers ready to report them.  I smile confidently as I stare at the roof before entering the doors that swallow me up in its monstrosity.<br/>I know that I’ve done everything I possibly could.  Even if I’m a dog of the military, there are still privileges held to only me and me alone.  No one else can experience them and I’m elated by this very fact.<br/><br/>It turns completely silent.<br/>Carefully, I unplaster my hands from my ears.  There’s nothing but quietness as lights above me are turned on.<br/><br/>Now, there’s nothing but white all around me.  The only color I see is from my black clothes and the usual red coat I wear to cover myself.<br/><br/>What?  Why is there no counter to the last images?  Where is the balance?<br/><br/>Then, there is a strange stench.  I look at myself and my gloves are covered in blood.  My coat turns into liquid, melting from the hem to my neckline.  I am horrified, but I do not move.  I grab my throat.  <br/>Why can’t I shout?  Why have I lost my voice?  Where did it go?!<br/><br/>I am all alone.<br/><br/>But the voices are talking again.  The silence is turning to entropy.  I feel the encroaching pandemonium and I freeze.  I never thought this day would come.<br/><br/>There are zombies forming from the floor.  They are faceless beings creeping from the floor.  They’re gray and black, coming and going nowhere.<br/>Coming towards me, their hands reach out to me.  When they’re only a few feet before me, they’re transformed to beings made of flesh.  But they still have no faces.<br/><br/>I try to run away, but there are too many around me.<br/><br/>I go berserk.<br/>No faces…<br/>Their hands are groping onto me for me to help them and are trying to kill me in the process too.<br/><br/>My mind is wavering.  My eyes go from side to side.  Soon, they are crowding me and I can’t breathe.  They’re even coming from the top of this human pyramid and blocking my only form of light.<br/><br/>I blink and blink and blink…<br/>I can’t even hear myself breathe as the sensation forces itself into my head like an earthquake.  But no one can hear me scream bloody murder.<br/><br/>Even though I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I start to grab onto everyone and everything I can.  Clothes, hair, neck…<br/><br/>Blinkblinkblinkblinkblink.<br/><br/>I start to tear through.  I feel my hands become stained with their blood, but if I don’t do this, I’ll die.  No one can hear me.  No one can save me.  But I know what I’m doing is murder.<br/><br/>It’s me or you.  And I want to live.  There is nothing wrong with that.<br/>Damn it, there’s nothing wrong with that!<br/><br/>Covered in this color and fighting my way in this survival match, I rip into their skin with their nails digging into mine.  Closing my eyes, primal instinct takes over.<br/><br/>I want to live.  I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die.<br/>Idon’twannadieIdon’twannadieIdon’twannadie!<br/><br/>DokidokidokidokiDOKIDOKIDOKI!<br/><br/>I gasp for air and when I feel the last cold hand clasping onto my arm with hesitancy, I shake it off.  I cover my gloved hands over my face.  There is nothing but the pulsating red rain running down me.  I feel it warmly try to comfort me with its guilt.<br/><br/>I’m crying, but it’s all in silence.  Only small gasps of air show that I still have the ability to hear and that I’m “alive”.<br/>I barely hold onto the threads of what makes me human.  I slowly open my eyes to see the dismantled bodies before me.<br/><br/>Now, they have faces.  They are people I recognize.<br/><br/>I take a step back and I’m immediately against a wall.  My leg is over a blue uniform and I stare at the handsome face who has stolen kisses from me in a million different ways.  One side of his mouth is stained with my blood and his together.  His eyes are closed and I want to touch him.<br/><br/>All around me are the bodies of people I’ve met before.  <br/>Here I am, still alive, not feeling as if I deserve to.<br/><br/>Now, through the lull, things are starting to make sense.  I take off one of my gloves to touch his face.  And in a flash, his voice among the crowd is deciphered.  He’s calling my name.<br/><br/>Everyone was calling me to do something.  They wanted me to comprehend the situation or position they were in.  They had expectations.  They had their own standards for me to live up to.<br/><br/>But I could only live with my own.<br/><br/>Save the people.<br/>Save yourself.<br/>This is your job.<br/>This is who you are.<br/>Fight for what you believe in.<br/>Cower to live another day and don’t care about pride now.<br/>Why are you doing this?<br/>Why are you here?<br/>I’m happy though I’m in pain.<br/>I’m bursting with infliction, but I can still smile positively.<br/><br/>Ed.  Edward.  Full Metal Alchemist.  <br/>These are names.  These are labels stamped onto me.<br/><br/>And yet, I am all of them.  In some way, I can be none of them too…<br/><br/>It’s always a lonely war with myself.  There are no winners.  There are no losers.  They just exist, a dominant sphere taking over the others until the next reign.  It’s a rotation that’s been long overdone and yet, this is the way I live.<br/><br/>But when I look at the blue uniform, I kiss his bloodied mouth.  I drink him in because I think it’s his last wish even though he hasn’t told me it should be.<br/><br/>Throughout all this time, he didn’t request anything.  He doesn’t ask to be forgiven.  All he wants is to live normally.  He just wants me there by his side.<br/><br/>But I can’t.  It isn’t you I’ve lived for…<br/><br/>I get up and my eyes let tears fall as if they control me.  I walk among the crowd and I notice that <em>he </em>isn’t there.  His body isn’t there in the pile.  It’s the one that I killed off many years ago.<br/><br/>I want to cry even more.  I need you…<br/>Where are you?<br/><br/>I run and run.  I’m dripping and my vision becomes cloudy, but I’m still turning my head from side to side.  I’m dizzy by the whiteness that does nothing but make me feel qualm.  I feel sick to my stomach and my body repulses the purity.<br/><br/>Then, there is a light even brighter than the whiteness of this endless black hole.  From above me, I hear someone calling my name.  I stop to regard the ray of light, even if it’s burning my eyes.<br/><br/>I see him.  This is what he would look like if I didn’t take his body away.<br/><br/>He is beautiful.  So beautiful.<br/><br/>I want to feel him, but I can’t see his face.<br/><br/>I turn away as a warm touch makes my arms tingle.  At the same time, I’m repulsed by myself.  I am guilty of everything and anything.  I don’t want to taint him with my impurities…<br/><br/>I’ve killed everyone…<br/>Just to get to you…<br/><br/>Because you are the one I love among everything in this world.<br/><br/>Forgive me.  Don’t forsake me.  <br/>Everyone can.  Even kamisama…<br/><br/>Anyone but you.<br/><br/>The fifteen-year-old boy shakes his brother’s shoulders.  He holds onto him carefully, yet desperately as his eyes search into the closed ones.<br/>“Ni-chan.  Ni-chan...” a gentle tone calls.<br/>He cannot help but feel agony at watching the tears that stream from the sides of his brother’s face.  He rubs them away with his thumb, the sensation is almost too seductive for him.<br/><br/>He’s so glad to be able to touch him again…<br/>But the tears don’t stop.<br/><br/>Even when his brother opens his eyes, they can’t regard anything.  And yet, in a twisted peril, his older brother reaches out for his face.  “Al…Al…where are you Al?”<br/>The younger one places his face in between the metal hand and the one made of bone and skin.  He closes his eyes as he breathes in the moment.<br/><br/>It’s been so long.  Even though it’s as distorted and painful as this, it’s still so wonderful.<br/>“I’m right here,” he answers, unable to keep his eyes closed for too long.<br/><br/>He bends down to kiss him on the lips.  He knows it’s wrong.  They both know this, but he kisses him even more and harder.<br/><br/>His brother is blind, but he uses his hands to feel two arms of flesh.  He guides his hand to explore his body with his fingertips.  Even though Ed can’t see anything anymore, he knows what Al looks like.  He makes a clear image in his head.<br/><br/>Al only kisses him because of his childish innocence, the way Ed has always wanted to keep him, even with all their grief.<br/><br/>Ed cannot move in the hospital bed, but Al is sleeping next to him.  He holds on even though tears stain their pillow.  For him, his brother has given half of his life and his eyesight.  The people beyond the gate wanted to also take away his legs, but instead, they wanted him to live with all their sadistic intentions.<br/><br/>To live being blind.  To live with the shame of being with his own brother.<br/><br/>But to him, it’s only an obstacle, not a price to be paid.  He only wanted to give what he had been given.<br/>That was all.<br/><br/>Maybe he was strange and maybe others wouldn’t be able to understand.<br/><br/>But he was proud…<br/>Proud to protect and love the person he cherished most in the world.<br/><br/>The tears wouldn’t cease.  Ed couldn’t tell it was him.  He was numb and he was blind in all aspects now, both literally and figuratively.  As he held him tighter, he felt an even greater shame and desperation.<br/><br/>Ed didn’t know that his little brother gave up his life when they came to the gate once more.  In the process of equivalent trade, Al had given himself up in order for his brother to live a life they both would have liked to share with one another.<br/>But Ed purposely forgot all these details in his sorrow-induced amnesia.<br/><br/>He punctured out his eyes in the process, making himself blind.  He couldn’t live with that fact.<br/><br/>“If this is how it is, then I don’t want to see anything anymore~!” he shouted resolutely.<br/>But he would live.  Al told him to.<br/><br/>In seclusion, they would live together.  The Colonel had a choice and he died that day with Al and Ed’s eyes.  Even like this, he wanted “happiness” with Ed.  How could he give up being with someone who made him realize and regain his own humanity?  If he had to forsake anything, then it would be himself then…<br/><br/>For you.  Yes, it was only right.<br/><br/>The vampire eyes captured him.  They killed him and resurrected him, following him unto mournful eternity since the first time he saw him.  And since then, he’d been watching him.  With every aching moment and with every moment of laughter, he’d continue to watch him silently.<br/><br/>He wanted to laugh to himself.  It was all so funny.  Did kamisama laugh at his folly?  The great soldier who didn’t believe in him was now at his mercy?  Why was it such a human thing to do?  To give up everything for the one you truly loved, an unconditional love that knew no boundaries and therefore exceeded beyond the definitions of “dangerous”?<br/><br/>Wasn’t it ironic that you would sacrifice anything and voluntarily wanted to die?  It was so much harder to live through, though.  To be the one left behind…<br/><br/>…when a life without that person meant no life at all.<br/><br/>If that were the case, why were they even there?   Why did they have to do all this?  Was it all pointless?<br/><br/>As he held him tighter in his arms, he was holding on for dear life...<br/>For, he concluded, “happiness” was a subjective thing, wasn’t it?  <br/><br/>Then, did that mean that humans lived in an illusion, or self-imposed waking dreams?  Maybe.  They all perceived things differently.  Nothing would ever be perfect.  Not in actuality or in a memory.<br/><br/>Nothing was ever captured in its entirety.<br/><br/>Not emotions.  Not sanity.  Not death.  Not life…<br/>Nothing at all.<br/><br/>Especially love.<br/>Yes, especially that of love.<br/><br/><br/><b>Owari. / The End.<br/></b><b></b></span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I made this while I was waiting for someone.  So this pieces seems very urgent, though it brings a lot of issues.  There’s really nothing except a reflective stance.  Lately, I’ve been doing that a lot more than usual.  Hope you’re not bored and that you’re still getting the richness of emotion and thoughts that I’m trying to convey.  Somehow, I’ve come to some confusion within myself and so my writing is reflecting that.</p><p>I thought hard on who I wanted out of this.  At first, I thought Hatori, then Seishirou or Fuji Syusuke. Then, I came to Edward.  But in the end, I ended up with Colonel Mustang because I thought that showing a side of him that isn’t as powerful would balance his character out.</p><p>All in all, the piece is supposed to be confusing, yet poetic.  I didn’t put the translations next to them because 1) I wanted them to be read separately and 2) I wanted to simulate a deepness within the words for those who understood the literal meaning in Japanese yet cause interest/annoyance/reaction from those who don’t.  And then, both groups come to different conclusions and interpretations of these thoughts.  (Yes, you already know I think too much about fanfics…^_^ Well, more for you to read, isn’t that correct?)</p><p>Translations:<br/>Anata ga iru kedo…  / Even though you are here…</p><p>Kimi ga inai.  Kimi mo inai yo. / You aren’t here.  You aren’t here~!</p><p>Demo, yuki ni iku ka?  / But am I heading towards the snow?</p><p>Yureru namida. / Wavering tears.</p><p>Demo, shinjitai.  Ore ni totte, nanika shinjitai.  / But I want to believe.  For myself, I want to believe in something.</p><p>“Doushite...Koko ni iru? / Why…am I here?”</p></blockquote></div></div>
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